


The two best friends I never had

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Annabeth Chase, BAMF Percy Jackson, Best Friends, Bullying, Families of Choice, Gen, Grover (Percy Jackson) is a Good Friend, Hurt/Comfort, Percy is a Dork, Protective Annabeth Chase, Protective Percy, Protectiveness, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24179386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: The campers learn the hard way that nobody messes with Percy Jackson's best friend, and Grover learns the best way that he hasn't been forgotten or left behind by his family.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson & Grover Underwood
Comments: 26
Kudos: 468





	The two best friends I never had

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever fic was a PJO fic posted on the 18/5/17, and today is the anniversary of my fanfic writing career, and I thought that the best way to celebrate was to write a PJO fic and post it on the same day three years later. So happy three year anniversary to me, and I hope that you enjoy it x

It was the first time in a long time that they had gotten some time to themselves, and they spent it in the strawberry fields, laid out on a picnic blanket decorated with a bushel of roses he had traded some seashells for and food that he had carefully picked out. Percy wore his best shirt, not a decoration or zipper or hoodie string in sight, and Annabeth wore her hair up in a twisted bun of interlocking curls so intricate that Percy couldn’t tell where it began and where it ended.

There wasn’t any sort of special occasion. There was nothing to celebrate. They just liked spending time together, and this was the first time in too long that they had both been free at the same time and were able to do anything this special. 

The Stolls had hooked them up with a bottle of champagne. Whether they had found it or stolen it or brought it, Percy had no idea, but they claimed that it was expensive and high-quality, so he gave them a few drachmas in thanks and took it from them. Annabeth seemed to like it, and so, Percy was happy just to have it swirling in his glass and the bubbles tickling his nose. He didn’t tend to drink alcohol, even champagne. He had grown up learning a life-long lesson.

“You know, Seaweed Brain?” Annabeth tipped her head back and laughed, her hair falling over her shoulder and down her spine, and Percy found himself trailing the curve of her throat until he reached her eyes. Her lips were smiling, and coated in red lipstick. “I didn’t think you had it in you, but this is actually really romantic. I’m proud of you.”

“I can be romantic,” Percy pouted. “Like when we were twelve years old and I convinced you to ride with me at that abandoned water park in Denver.”

Annabeth laughed at the memory, and Percy loved the way her eyes lit up. “The Tunnel of Love at Waterland? Yeah, you were real suave as a twelve-year-old. The way I like to see it, you dragged me onto that stupid thing and then the bars locked me in. There was nothing romantic about it.”

“Oh, come on,” Percy protested, reaching out and shoving Annabeth lightly in the shoulder and she easily went with it, rocking back a bit where she was leaning back on her hands. “Give me this one. I deserve a win!”

She rolled her eyes in that way she did when he was being foolishly unreasonable, but her smile, as bright as the sun dancing on the blonde strands of her hair, counteracted it, and made it all the sweeter. “You’re the legendary Percy Jackson, chosen of the gods, killer of Kronos, one of the Big Seven of the prophecy, son of Sally Jackson. You’ve already got all the wins you could ever ask for!”

She looked so pretty like this, lying back on the grass, hidden partially by strawberry bushes, the red fruit hanging ripe for the picking, her hair splayed like a halo under her head, her hands resting on her stomach, her eyes dancing across the sky as she watched the passing clouds, the aftertaste of a laugh lightening her face, that Percy wished, not for the first time, that he had a phone so he could take a photo of her so he could remember this always. Maybe he could find one of the Apollo kids to make a portrait of them, but that would probably take way too long, and no demigod was able to sit still for that long. Hell, he’d even settle for a polaroid. 

He was knocked out of his thoughts when he realized that Annabeth had turned her head to look at him, and had her nose scrunched up in that adorable way she did when she was trying not to laugh. “Are you going to stare at me all day or are you going to kiss me?”

“Don’t make me choose,” Percy replied, but before he could lean down to place a kiss on her lips, he was stopped by a high-pitched sound, almost like an out of rhythm siren, and both Annabeth and Percy sat up and looked around. “Uh, Annabeth, what is that?”

“It doesn’t sound like any alarm I’ve ever heard here,” Annabeth blocked the sun from her eyes with her hand as she looked out over the strawberry bushes and towards camp. It looked pretty deserted. No cause for alarm. “Maybe an Apollo camper trying their luck at a new instrument?”

But Percy had seen it before Annabeth had, and he squinted into the sun at the shape charging towards them, formless and wavering in the heat. “Who is- wait, is that _Leo_?”

It was, in fact, Leo, and soon enough he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of their picnic blanket, kicking dirt up, and bent over, panting hard and sweating. “Percy!” he gasped. “Quick- come- gods, hurry! The edge of the woods! It’s Grover- I-”

Leo was having such a hard time speaking, having run from the opposite end of camp as fast as he could, and when it became obvious that they weren’t getting much out of him, Percy leapt up and started running as fast as he could towards the woods, pulling his pen from his pocket just in case. Annabeth took a little longer and patted and exhausted Leo on the back. “Sit here,” she said. “Watch our stuff. When you catch your breath, come meet us.” She didn’t stay long enough to see if he got the message.

Percy had already arrived when Annabeth finally got there, skidding a little bit on the loose pebbles. At first, it didn’t seem so strange, but then she took in the four Ares boys on one side, Grover being held back by Nico and Will Solace on the other, Juniper being held by some Demeter girls, looking disgusted and holing herself tightly, and all the other campers standing around them in a wide circle looking different kinds of outraged. 

It had been a long time since Annabeth had seen Percy look so angry, not since Tartarus, not since Akhlys, and she noticed that he was less holding Grover back as he was holding tight to Grover’s suspenders as if to keep himself grounded. Not the other way around.

“What in gods name is going on here?” Annabeth demanded as she joined Percy in the middle of the circle. The Stolls were holding the giggling Ares kids in a tight circle and didn’t look like they were going to let them leave any time soon. She looked at Grover. “What did they do?”

But it was Juniper who spoke, “We were just going for a walk,” she spat, and the malice in her voice was new. Her cheeks were streaked with liquid chlorophyll, and her eyes were veiny like she had been crying. “And just when we said goodbye and I went home, these… these _terrible delinquents_ pulled down their pants and _pissed_ on my bush.”

“On _purpose_ ,” Grover growled, and Percy tightened his hold, but it wasn’t sure who he was holding back. “They had no reason to be near Zeus’s fist. They were waiting for her, Percy.”

It was then that Annabeth realized that Grover was bleeding, from multiple places no less. There was blood flowing freely from a cut in his hairline, there was a streak of red on his arm, his nose had a trickle. Annabeth understood immediately why Percy was so angry, and why he was having a hard time holding himself back. “Grover-”

“I’m fine,” he said, voice lower than she expected. “Deal with _them_.”

He waved his hand at the four boys fist-bumping each other and giggling, and they stopped when they were addressed. “Oh, come on, guys,” one laughed, short-haired and scruffy and looking like he owned the whole camp. “He’s just a satyr.”

Percy moved faster than Annabeth thought possible, but she should have known better by now, and before she could even blink, Percy had rushed forward and placed his blade underneath the chin of the speaker, and the Ares kid fell silent real quick as a hush fell over the crowd. “He may be just a satyr, but he’s also my best friend, so you should watch your tongue.”

Nobody moved for a very long time. Percy didn’t flinch, and the boy under him was very still as the blade dug into the skin on his throat. Will and Nico were exchanging worried glances between them. The Stoll’s looked energized as if excited to finally get some action after a quiet month of nothing. Clarisse was standing back with her arms crossed at the front of the wide surrounding circle, looking disappointed, and seemed to be happy to let Percy deal with them however he felt fit. 

It became a battle of who would move first, the tense silence only broken by Juniper’s muffled sobbing and Grover’s goaty sounds of distress, and Percy didn’t even flinch. But then the familiar clopping of hooves approached, and Chiron emerged from the crowd, carrying a still winded but much better looking Leo on his back, who hopped off immediately once they came to a stop. “Percy,” Chiron said calmly yet sternly. “Lower your blade, if you wouldn’t mind.”

For a little bit, it looked like Percy wasn’t going to move, wasn’t going to take his sword away from the Ares boy’s throat, wasn’t going to walk away, but Annabeth knew him better than anyone, and she recognized when Percy was going to stand down, and she moved forward even before he lowered the blade with a white-knuckled grip on the hilt. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as Annabeth walked over to join Grover, no longer being held back by Nico and Will and who were all standing in a small cluster. It seemed like everything was going to be alright.

And then Percy reared forward and smashed the pommel of Riptide into the campers nose and blood burst out, splattering Percy's fist and pouring down his face.

Most of the crowd gasped. Clarisse looked satisfied, Leo looked a little taken aback, and Chiron just sighed. The older campers, the ones who had known Percy since the beginning, didn’t even bat an eye. “Was that necessary?” Chiron sighed as he ran a hand down his face. The Ares boy was holding his face and screaming, blood pouring through his fingers, his brothers holding his shoulders and looking at Percy like they were going to attack him, but by the way every other camper was looking at them, they seemed to be thinking better of it.

“Sorry, Percy,” Clarisse said over her half-brothers screaming and the murmuring of the crowd, looking exasperated. “They’re new. I assumed that ‘don’t mess with Jackon’ or ‘leave the dryads and satyrs alone’ were unspoken lessons, but I guess we’ll have to re-teach them some things. You let them off easy,” she turned her attention to the four boys, who were now looking at Clarisse with more fear than they could ever look at Percy. “Don’t expect that kind of leniency from me.”

There was muttering from the crowd as he capped Riptide and joined Annabeth at Grover’s side. “Are you alright?” he asked, and the frighteningly angry Percy was mostly gone now, replaced with the worried, protective Percy that Annabeth knew and loved. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” Grover said, but he sounded miserable. “It’s Juniper who really got hurt in all this. I can’t believe all I could do was stand there and watch.”

Behind them, Chiron was giving the young Ares boys a stern talking to with a very angry Clarisse at his side, and Annabeth turned to the Demeter girls surrounding Juniper. “Can you girls take care of her for a little while?”

They all nodded in assent. “Katie’s on her way,” one said. “We’ve got her."

Annabeth wasn’t sure why that made her feel better, but it did, and Juniper gave Grover a quick kiss as they passed and disappeared deeper into the woods. Grover watched after her, looking sad. “Come on,” Annabeth urged quietly as she put her hand on Grover’s lower back and guided him away from the crowd and out of sight of the four Ares boy’s getting their ears chewed out by Chiron. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are we going?” Grover asked, sounding not at all interested as he begrudgingly let Annabeth lead him out of the camp, towards Thalia’s pine tree at the edge of camp and the barely-there glimmer of the magical forcefield. 

That caught her off guard, and Annabeth realized that she didn’t have any plan, but before she could worry about that, Percy joined them on Grover’s other side, linking his arm in Grover’s, and flashing them that goofy smile they were so familiar with. “We’re going to my place. Estelle’s been talking about you for ages, and mum’s been keeping special recycling for you.”

“Percy, I appreciate it, but I really don’t think that I’m in the mood to put on a performance for your mum,” Grover sighed, and he sounded so defeated that Annabeth and Percy exchanged a look over the top of his curly, horned head.

“Bad luck,” Percy insisted. “You don’t want to be responsible for breaking Estelle’s little heart, would you?”

It was a low blow, and they all knew it, but Grover sighed anyway and nodded weakly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

They didn’t exactly have a plan of how to get to Percy’s mother’s appointment. Public transport made Grover a little uneasy, and the stables were on the other side of the camp. They could have walked, but it was pretty far away. In the end, they decided to take a bus, and none of them brought up how dangerous it was for them all to be travelling in a confined space so far away with a very powerful demigod.

“The last time we were on a bus,” Annabeth remembered. “We blew it up.”

“And were attacked by Hades’s furies,” Grover added.

“Let’s look on the bright side, yeah?” Percy brushed them off, and Annabeth stifled her laugh. “I’ve got enough pessimism to last a lifetime, no use you two jumping on that bandwagon.”

The closer they got to the Jackson-Blofis apartment, the more excited Percy got, and he was basically jittering with nervous energy. He used his keycard to get into the building, and lead them up the stairs until he reached his family apartment. There was a blue sign hanging from a nail that had been hammered under the room number, with _'Welcome to The Jackson-Blofis household'_ scrawled in cursive handwriting and gold paint. “Rachel had made it as a housewarming gift,” Percy explained as he used his key to enter the house. “Mum? Paul? I’m home, and I’ve brought guests-”

He was interrupted by nearly being knocked over by a tiny child with dark hair in a white sundress running into him and grappling his knees with a death-grip. There was a muffled cry into his kneecaps, and then he was bending down and wrapping his arms against the small child with familiar curly brown hair and tan skin, and lifting her up. “Hey there, Nerida,” Percy grinned and placed a kiss on her wild locks. Wild in a different way than Percy’s, but wild all the same. “Where are you running off to? You look very nice. Is this a new dress?”

Around the corner came a very flustered Paul, wearing two different socks with his shoes untied, and a sunhat in his hand. “Estell- oh, hi Percy. Welcome home. I was just about to take Estelle out on a walk, but we’ll be back soon if you’re willing to wait that long. You’re mothers in the other room. She’s baking.” he laughed affectionately as he placed the little sunhat on Estelle’s head. It nearly didn’t fit with all her hair taking up so much space.

“I wondered what I could smell,” Percy laughed as he tickled a giggling Estelle. “When you come back, we’ll be here, and you can play with Grover and Annabeth for a little while, alright?”

Estelle squealed as Percy lowered her back down to the ground, and only letting go of him when Paul pulled her away. “Bye, Percy!”

“Bye Estelle,” Percy laughed and waved back at her until the door closed.

Annabeth laughed. “Gods, I love her. She’s just… ugh. She’s wonderful.”

He turned to Grover and elbowed him in the side, and Grover made a protesting sound in the back of his throat. “If that didn’t cheer you up, even a little bit, then I don’t know what will.”

As promised, Sally was in the kitchen, with her back to the door, crouching in front of the oven door. Her frizzy brown hair was tied up in a ponytail at the back of her neck, and she wore an old, dirty apron over a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The grin that spread across Percy’s face once he saw her was contagious, and Annabeth and Grover found themselves grinning with him. When Sally turned towards them, holding a tray of blue muffins, she looked so shocked that she nearly dropped the tray. Her face brightened at the sight of them. “Percy!” She beamed as she put the hot tray on the counter and moved towards him so she could wrap him in a tight hug. “I didn’t know you were coming?”

“It wasn’t really planned,” Percy laughed as he held her just as tightly. “It was a crazy day at camp, and we’ve just come by to cool down a bit, that’s all.”

“What did you fight today?” Sally laughed as she reluctantly pulled away, but left her hands on Percy’s shoulders. “A hydra? A giant? A dragon? Something you’ve never seen before?”

“A group of Ares kids,” Annabeth said as she pushed Percy out of the way and hugged Sally as well, and Sally was more than happy to indulge her, laughing as she did so. “It’s a long story, actually, but they really did deserve it.”

Face falling, Sally pulled away from Annabeth slightly. “Ares kids? What happened?” Then she caught sight of Grover standing shyly at the back of the group. “Grover- you’re bleeding!”

“Hi Sally,” Grover managed just before he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug by a very worried Sally. “It hasn’t really been the best day.”

“We wanted to get him away from the camp,” Percy explained. “We were planning on cleaning him up here if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Sally said like it was a stupid question. “You live here too, and I’m more than happy to have some guests. You should stay for dinner. The first aid kit is in the bathroom under the sink. These muffins are too hot to eat now, so you’re free to take these cookies I made and then you can have the muffins for dessert.”

Percy couldn’t help but laugh as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to place a kiss on her head. “Sounds great, mum.”

Five minutes later, Percy was holding a plate of hastily stacked blue cookies while Grover held a plastic bag filled with cleaned aluminium cans that Sally had been saving for Grover’s next visit, and they were walking to his bedroom, making a short pit-stop at the bathroom so Annabeth could collect the first-aid kid from under the sink before they opened the door to his room. It was exactly the same as he remembered it, except the bed was made and the dirty clothes he had forgotten to pick up off the floor before he left for camp were gone and folded away in his drawers. His photos were still up on the wall, stuck with glue-tack and sticky tape, and the trident Paul had brought for him at a garage sale was still in the corner, nothing but a silly gag-gift. He delicately placed the plate of cookies on the bedside table and turned to Grover, placing one hand on the middle of his chest and pushing him on the bed. “Sit.”

Grover fell back with a yelp. Troubled, he took a can out of the bag and munched on it while Annabeth started taking things out of the first aid kid, mostly bandaids, but it helped to have all your options open. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

“Why?” Percy asked as he dove next to Grover on the bed. Annabeth scowled at him as it made a roll of bandages topple off the bed and unravel on the floor. “It’s just like old times, right?"

“I don’t remember this being like old times at all,” Grover mumbled, mouth full of aluminium. “I remember you always getting hurt by doing something stupid and reckless and then I would sit back and tell you off for trying to get yourself killed.”

Percy snorted. “Oh, come on, I wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“Hmm,” Annabeth made a noise of protest from where she knelt on the floor. “You were, actually. Mr Fight A Minotaur On Your First Day At Camp And Challenge The God Of War To A Duel On The Beach. I’d been at camp a long time before you arrived, and I had never seen anyone so stupidly reckless.”

“But haven’t your lives just gotten so much more _interesting_ since you met me?” Percy protested as he plucked a cookie from the tray and devoured the whole thing in one bite. “I exploded the toilets my first day at camp and drenched Clarisse in dirty water. I bet you’d never seen that before, huh?”

Annabeth and Grover exchanged a look, and both of them burst out laughing. “Yeah, but unfortunately for us, that was just a taste of what was to come,” Annabeth said. “Let's not forget the time that you made a dormant volcano erupt and woke a Titan that only the Gods could defeat. We all thought you had died. We held a funeral for you and everything. I burned your flag.”

“True,” Percy said. “But that was also the first time you kissed me, so if I had died, I would have died happy.”

“Gods,” Annabeth snorted. “You’re so cheesy.”

“It’s a good thing that you like cheese then,” Percy laughed at the look on her face as she sat up a little and began to dab the blood away from Grover’s nose. The cloth came away dirty with long-dried blood. “Wow Grover, those punks really did a number on you, huh?”

“Don’t mock my pain,” Grover grumbled, but he didn’t really mean it. There was no heat behind his words. “I’m so mad. You have no idea how unbelievably mad I am.” He punctuated his point by shoving another can in his mouth, munching on it mournfully.

Satisfied with the state of his nose, Annabeth moved on to the cut in Grover’s hairline, and gently wiped away the blood that had dribbled down into his eye during the long trip through the city on public transport. Through his curly hair, his horns had grown from the stubby little things that you could barely see to bands like the rings of an old tree that followed the curve of his head and stopped near his ears, the pointy end barely brushing his earlobe as it began to curl. In a few more years, they would probably start to curl like rams horns, thick and bold and harder to hide with a baggy fabric hat, a set of horns worthy of his prestigious status. But she didn’t see the Lord of the Wild when looking at him- she saw the nervous, gangly satyr who would bleat involuntarily and would go along with anything just for approval and so he didn’t lose another half-blood on his watch. 

“I remember when these things were tiny,” she said absently into the silence that followed, running her hands through Grover’s hair, her fingers bumping over the horns. He made a face as his head was pushed down, but the expression was soured by the smile curling his lips like his horns. “I didn’t even know you were supposed to have horns when we met. But you’ve grown into them.”

“You think so?” Grover blushed as he raised his hand and gingerly touched his horns. “Juniper says I’m being silly, but I think they’re a little too big for my head.”

“Nah,” Percy said as he whacked Grover so hard in the back that he almost slipped off the bed and Annabeth caught him, giggling. “You’ll grow into them. You’re just over-reacting. They look great, G-man.”

Grover was blushing now, a red tint climbing upwards to his slightly-pointed ears. Annabeth ran a hand down his arm, and he looked up at her, his eyes wide and vulnerable and tired. “Juniper will be fine, you know. She’s strong. You’re both strong. Those Ares boys will get what's coming to them, Clarisse will make sure of that.”

Sitting up, Percy grabbed another cookie off the plate and shoved it in his mouth before throwing his arm around Grover’s shoulder, pulling him to his side so that Grover sunk into him. “Yeah, those kids will learn to never mess with the Lord of the Wild, Chosen one of Pan, Leader of the Council of Cloven Elders ever again.”

Snorting, Grover swallowed down another can as Percy smothered him against his side. “I don’t think anyone at camp actually knows what that is. Like, the campers who were there when it all went down might remember, but the new kids? Those Ares brats? I doubt they’ve ever even heard of the Council _or_ the Lord of the Wild.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Percy said. “All us older campers know. The Stolls, Will and Nico? They all know how badass you are. So does Clarisse and Chiron, and you bet your boots that Clarisse is probably letting them know how cool you are.”

“You’re giving me too much credit,” Grover rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think so,” Annabeth laughed, standing from the floor and joining them on the bed. She leant on Grover’s other side, nestled against him, so Percy was easily supporting both their weight. “Everyone at camp knows how great you are. You’re a household name. Those kids were stupid messing with you, and everyone else is going to make sure they know it.”

Grover spluttered. “Oh, you guys are being too nice. But really, did you see their faces when Percy showed up? You scared the crap out of them, man. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

Percy shrugged, and the motion moved them both. “You guys are the two best friends I’ve ever had. You were there for me all the way back when Smelly Gabe was still hanging around and wasn’t a statue in some rich person's family room. If those dumb kids think that they’re going to mess with you without any ramifications, then I’m going to have to burst their bubble. I wasn’t going to let them get away with that. Besides, I know you and Juniper could have taken care of them yourselves.”

“Yeah,” Annabeth said. “You did kinda rush in back there.”

“I thought that it would look better if I killed then than if Grover did,” Percy was so nonchalant that Annabeth laughed. “Juniper looked so mad. And Grover was bleeding. I didn’t know what to think when I got there. Leo wasn’t very helpful.”

“No,” Annabeth agreed. “He really wasn’t. But he tried his best.”

Sighing, Grover put down his half-emptied bag of aluminium and relaxed the rest of his weight against Percy, who shifted against the backboard so Grover could lay flat on his legs and Annabeth could settle against his hip. “Thanks for this, guys. I think I really needed this. I had to calm down a bit before I got back to camp, otherwise, it might not have gone well for those boys. But I’m glad you brought me here. I always feel so welcomed by your mum.”

“She loves having you here,” Percy said. “You sound sad. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Grover shrugged. “It’s just that… I don’t know. We used to be so close, and it would be just the three of us, and I thought it would be that way forever. But then you guys grew up and drifted away from camp a little bit and I had to stay back here. And then Percy disappeared, and everyone spent all their time searching for him, and then you didn’t come back for a very long time, and I wasn’t sure if you were ever coming back. And then you did come back, but you were with so many other people I didn’t know and I assumed that you just… moved on, and forgot about me in all the action, you know? But I’m glad that didn’t happen, and that we’re still pretty close.”

Percy wrapped his arms around Grover and held him tightly to his chest, swinging him side to side as Annabeth said. “Oh Grover, nothing’s ever going to tear us apart. We’re a trio. We won’t ever split up or leave you behind.”

“Yeah,” Percy agreed. “Besides, there’s no Percy and Annabeth without our Grover.”

“What does that mean?” Grover frowned.

“You know,” Percy waved his hands around as he spoke. “For all the stupid and dangerous things we manage to get ourselves into, you always manage to find some way to pull us out of it.”

Annabeth made a doubtful sound at the back of her throat. “Um, I don’t know about that, Percy. Grover is just as reckless as the both of us.”

Both men frowned and turned to Annabeth with a perplexed expression. “Uh, I resent that, actually,” Grover said.

“Oh, really?” Annabeth sat up and looked at Grover doubtfully, her eyebrows pulled together, but her lips still curled upwards. “Which one of us managed to get accidentally betrothed to the most famous Cyclops in ancient Greek history? Who went looking through the labyrinth specifically to find the Lord of the Wild? Who somehow managed to find the most difficult and powerful demigod in history?”

Grover frowned. “Alright, hey, that whole Polyphemus thing wasn’t my fault. I was kidnapped. He was blind. I don’t know where I got the wedding dress from, but it did the trick.”

“Yeah,” Percy argued. “And I’m not the most difficult demigod that Grover ever found.”

There was a pause as they mulled the words over. “I mean…” Grover said, exchanging a glance with Annabeth.

“Oh,” Percy grumbled. “That’s not fair. Now you’re both ganging up on me. Great. I love that.”

The room fell silent. It didn’t last very long, as they all devolved into belly-aching laughter that echoed around the room, and they were leaning on each other and holding themselves together as they laughed harder than they had in a very long time. 

It felt good, being all together again. Comforting. Familiar. Chaotic. Homely.

They hadn’t laughed like that in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Nerida is greek for mermaid btw. I was trying to figure out a nickname for her, and I wanted to call her 'mermaid' but I thought that was stupid, but a 'nautical names for children' list gave me that, so I was very pleased.


End file.
